The lawyer for Curtis Reeves, a
retired police captain who fatally shot a fellow moviegoer in 2014, is
planning to use Florida’s “stand your ground” law to defend his client.

Mr. Reeves was
arrested for the fatal shooting of Chad Oulson in January 2014. Police
say Mr. Oulson threw his bag of popcorn in Reeves' face after the former
captain criticized him for texting. Reeves responded by pulling out his
gun and shooting Oulson in the chest, according to law enforcement. A
bullet also grazed Oulson's wife, Nicole.

“I think we have a pretty solid stand your ground
case,” Richard Escobar, Reeves’ attorney, told the Tampa Bay Times.
Escobar plans to utilize a video taken at the scene to prove Reeves
acted lawfully under Florida’s self-defense law and ultimately have the
criminal charges dismissed. A five-day hearing is scheduled to begin on
Jan. 25.

October 8, 2015 -- This week, Senate Democrats will reportedly unveil new legislation
that would block guns from being sold without background checks. The
bill, sponsored by Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Chris
Murphy (D-Conn.), would close a loophole that allows retailers to sell
guns without a background check after 72 hours.

Background check legislation last saw a Senate vote in April 2013 after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, when an amendment
sponsored by Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) would have provided a
stricter background check process to prevent criminals and those deemed
mentally ill from purchasing a gun (you can read the full text of the
measure here). The amendment failed to garner the 60 votes required to override a filibuster and was stopped by a vote of 54-46.

Senators voting against the 2013 Manchin-Toomey Amendment received, on average, 11 times more money ($25,631) from pro-gun interest groups than senators voting for it ($2,340) between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2014.In contrast, campaign contributions from anti-gun groups to Senators in the same period were negligible.

Six senators received more than $50,000 from pro-gun interest groups
between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2014. Of those, only one (Pat
Toomey (R-Pa.), also a co-sponsor of the amendment) supported the
stricter background check process.

The more that sensational gun violence afflicts the nation, the more that the myth of the vigilant citizen packing a legally permitted concealed weapon, fully prepared to stop the next mass shooter in his tracks, is promoted.

This foolhardy notion of quick-draw resistance, however, is dramatically contradicted by a research project
showing that, since 2007, at least 763 people have been killed in 579
shootings that did not involve self-defense. Tellingly, the vast
majority of these concealed-carry, licensed shooters killed themselves
or others rather than taking down a perpetrator.

The death toll includes 29 mass killings
of three or more people by concealed carry shooters who took 139 lives;
17 police officers shot to death, and — in the ultimate contradiction
of concealed carry as a personal safety factor — 223 suicides. Compared
with the 579 non-self-defense, concealed-carry shootings, there were only 21 cases in which self-defense was determined to be a factor.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

The media act as if they're performing a public service by refusing to
release details about the perpetrator of the recent mass shooting at a
community college in Oregon. But we were given plenty of information
about Dylan Roof, Adam Lanza, James Holmes and Jared Loughner.
Now, quick: Name the mass shooters at the Chattanooga military
recruitment center; the Washington Navy Yard; the high school in
Washington state; Fort Hood (the second time) and the Christian college
in California. All those shootings also occurred during the last three
years.
The answers are: Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, Kuwaiti; Aaron
Alexis, black, possibly Barbadian-American; Jaylen Ray Fryberg, Indian;
Ivan Antonio Lopez, Hispanic; and One L. Goh, Korean immigrant. (While
I'm here: Why are we bringing in immigrants who are mentally unstable?)
There's a rigid formula in media accounts of mass shootings: If
possible, blame it on angry white men; when that won't work, blame it on
guns.

A new study found that gun owners who search online for firearms storage tips might not be getting the best advice.

Only 2.3 percent of websites with information on
firearms storage contained all the practices "shown to protect children
and adolescents living in homes with gun," according to the study, led
by Katherine Freundlich of the University of Michigan Medical School.

The researchers examined 87 webpages found by
googling the 10 most common search terms related to gun storage. Most of
the websites were not easy to use or read, the study found. The sites
also listed on average less than one of the four safety tips recommended
by the American Academy of Pediatrics:

Overall, only two of the websites listed all four of the safety measures.

"People who are considering turning to the
Internet for guidance on home gun storage should be aware that the
information they find is unlikely to give them all the advice they
need," Freundlich said in a statement.

Police chiefs from across the United States called on Monday for
universal background checks for firearms purchases, saying opinion polls
consistently show that most Americans support such restrictions.

The proliferation of firearms is one of the factors behind a rise in
homicide rates in many U.S. cities this year, according to senior law
enforcement officials at the International Association of Chiefs of
Police conference in Chicago.

Acknowledging the power of the gun lobby and the reluctance of Congress
to enact stricter gun laws, the police chiefs told a news conference
they were not anti-gun but wanted to keep weapons out of the hands of
people with criminal backgrounds.